


Red, Hot & Blue (The Assorted Gourmet Peppercorn Remix)

by teaberryblue



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Extremis, Extremis Pepper Potts, Gen, Pepper Cap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-22 20:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7453588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaberryblue/pseuds/teaberryblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain America's getting a little hot under the collar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red, Hot & Blue (The Assorted Gourmet Peppercorn Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Family (The Headhunter Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7308238) by [a_q](https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_q/pseuds/a_q). 



> Thanks to everyone who helped beta: Morphia, TheLiterator, and Immoral Crow

"Captain," Nick Fury said, nodding as Captain America entered the room. Nick’s expression was softer than usual, more careworn than he usually allowed himself to appear in public, his hands clasped behind his back. 

The Captain surveyed the scene: the young man, lying on the hospital bed, hooked up to a dozen machines. He _looked_ healthy, looked like he might wake up at any moment, spring out of that bed with barely a complaint. "Unresponsive?” 

The cold, harsh hospital lights gave everything a greenish cast; the young man's face seemed pallid. 

"So far," said Nick, and he put his hands on his hips. "But his vitals are good. Our medical team thinks there's a good chance..." 

Captain America nodded. "And you want me here when he does." 

"If you'd like to be," Nick replied. He flashed a smile. "I think it would be appropriate."

The Captain took off her cowl and shook out her red hair, the messy ends of her ponytail glancing off the stiff shoulder guards of her uniform. She stepped over to the sleeping man, clasped the guardrail of the hospital bed, and smiled softly. “Well,” she said. “From one Captain to another.”

***

"Oh, no," Pepper said, gritting her teeth behind her apologetic smile. "I'm afraid I have plans."

Killian raised an eyebrow, cocking his head to one side, and Pepper tensed, knowing what was coming before the words were out of his mouth. "Cancel them," he replied.

"Can't!" She apologized, grimacing as her voice came out in a squeak. She popped up hastily from her desk-- too hastily, she chastised herself mentally-- and reached for her purse.

When she turned around, Killian was blocking the door.

The sinister leer on his face was her last memory before she woke. 

Her eyes blinked in the bright light that glared down from above. She tried to turn her head, but found herself strapped down-- her hands, the same. 

And then she opened her mouth, and when nothing came out, she screamed. _Still_ no sound passed her lips. 

Heat, she felt heat everywhere, and then, somewhere, outside the range of her peripheral vision, she heard a voice.

“Ah, she’s awake; better up the anesthetic.” 

But she was feverish, now, burning, and sweat beaded up on her forehead before sizzling and evaporating into the air. 

She shuddered where she lay, saw the needle in her arm begin to glow, red-hot, and then bend like a flexible wire. 

“Extremis,” she whispered, and this time, her words took form, hoarse and feather-light, but _audible_. “Extremis,” she tried again, louder. 

“Very _good_ ,” said a voice she recognized: that was Killian. “You’ve been paying attention.” 

“You stole--” Pepper’s voice gave out. 

“Stealing is such a strong word, don’t you think?” Killian asked. “She still has _copies_ of all her research. And she was missing a _key_ component of the formula.”

His teeth gleamed as he smiled at her. “Which I’ve perfected here.” 

Pepper pursed her lips, watching him carefully. She was sure he was daring her-- to do what, she wasn’t sure. 

What she _was_ sure of was that she needed to get out. She yanked herself upward-- and her bonds snapped. The flimsy bed shook beneath her, and just as it began to topple, she found her bearings, and landed feet-first on the floor.

She didn’t stumble. She blinked, looked down at her feet. 

_She didn’t stumble_. 

One of the men, dressed in a lab coat, grabbed her arm, and instantly dropped it, screaming. She whirled to look at him: his latex glove had melted straight through, seared to the blistering skin of his hand. 

"Contain her!" Killian shouted, eyes bulging in his rage-red face. 

"We can't, sir!"

A gunshot fired, directly at her; she raised a hand in reflex. Her mind was working fast, now, so fast: in the space of time it took for a bullet to travel across the room, a space of time she knew was, logically, not enough time to do more than react, she mentally chastised herself for putting up her hand, as if that could have any real effect.

But then the bullet contacted her skin. She felt it, hot against her palm, as it melted against her flesh, turned to liquid and dripped to the floor, first deep flame-red, then silvery and glistening, before it cooled and hardened to black. 

"Fuck me, Boss!" exclaimed one of Killian's men. "Would you look at--"

Experimentally, she jabbed a hand at the wall. 

She expected it to sizzle, for the paint to peel, for the wall to burst into flames.

None of that happened.

But her fist did smash through the layer of drywall, through the wooden beam and the insulation sandwiched beneath, dislodged a steel strut, before she drew her hand back.

So the heat-- the heat wasn't a constant, she thought. She couldn't count on it. But it wasn't the only thing. 

"I'm looking," Killian said. 

When their eyes met, his were dark, and the sneer on his face was cruel.

She curled her hands into fists. She could feel the heat rising again, the way it began as a warm knot in her chest. "You stole Hansen's work," she said.

“What are you going to do about it?” he asked her: another challenge. 

Pepper gritted her teeth. It would be so easy, she thought. So easy to break Killian's skull open, to melt his face, to snap his spine.

Instead, she ran.

***

Pepper snagged her spare keys from her desk and fled to the parking lot. The entire drive from Killian’s labs to her apartment, Pepper’s mind kept racing, playing a film of all the terrible things that could go wrong. She could burn up the car; she could _explode_ the car and kill hundreds of people on the freeway; she could be pulled over by a cop who would see that she was wearing nothing but a hospital gown and driving in bare feet; she could be pulled over by a cop and _explode the cop_.

She decided she couldn’t stay at home. Killian would send someone looking for her, and her apartment was the obvious choice. She made it into the building without being seen, breathed a sigh of relief as she managed to shut the door behind her, and only singed the carpet once, when she got overly nervous. 

She changed her clothes, packed a few more clothes, toiletries, her cash and her emergency credit card into a knapsack, and left on foot, wearing her running sneakers. 

She stopped at the nearest payphone, called the operator, and then dutifully put her quarters into the phone, waiting for it to ring. 

“Dr. Hansen?” she asked, when a woman picked up. 

“Yes?” said the voice on the other line. 

“I need to speak with you,” Pepper said. “Privately.” 

Dr. Hansen’s tests confirmed what Pepper had already guessed: her strength, speed, and stamina were all enhanced. 

But an attempt at a blood test left Dr. Hansen with a pile of molten sharps.

“Sorry,” Pepper said sheepishly. “They’re...it’s...I’m afraid of needles.” 

“And every time your heart rate increases,” Dr. Hansen observed interestedly, “your body temperature--” 

Pepper shrugged. She didn’t have to say it. There were enough scorchmarks on Dr. Hansen’s chair to illustrate the problem. 

“That fucking _thief_ ,” Dr. Hansen said with a scowl. “If I’d known he was going to--I’m so _sorry_ , Ms. Potts.” 

“It’s not your fault,” Pepper replied. “I just...somebody better do something about it before he does this to anyone else.” 

Dr. Hansen frowned, and stepped over to her desk, rifling through papers until she found a small, nondescript black card embossed in silver. “I think I know the right person.”

***

When the prim, elderly woman in the perfectly-tailored suit first asked her to burn something, she gritted her teeth, and shook her head. She’d successfully smashed a thick slab of bulletproof glass, leapt a full story into the air, the whoosh of breeze through her hair as she descended surprisingly exhilarating. But this--

“Can’t,” she apologized. “It only happens when I’m frightened.” 

The older woman nodded, and murmured something to Dr. Hansen, before she got up from her seat and approached Pepper. 

She was so small, frail and light as a bird, but her movements were quick, sharp, and she comported herself like a much younger woman. She clasped her hands together. “Dr. Hansen says the Extremis activates when your pulse increases.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Pepper said, nodding, as she tugged nervously at her ponytail. She looked up at Dr. Hansen, still seated, and Dr. Hansen nodded back. “It only happens when I’m scared.” 

“We can find ways for you to control it,” said the stranger. She smiled up at Pepper. “Would you be willing to try this?” 

“I-” Pepper eyed the old woman cautiously. “I’d like to know a little bit more about where I am, first.” 

“My name is Margaret Jones,” replied the old woman. “I’m with-- and you’re at the Southern California facilities for-- a government organization called the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division. You can call me Peggy.” 

“Peggy,” Pepper echoed. “And I’m Pepper.” 

“Pepper Potts,” Peggy observed, and then she smiled with amusement, her eyes twinkling. “Something tells me you didn’t get that name on account of your freckles.” 

Pepper coughed. “It’s the temper, ma’am,” she replied. 

Peggy grinned, broad and bright. “Good,” she said. “That’s exactly what I’m looking for.”

***

By the time Pepper found herself back at the AIM laboratories, she could burn at will. It had posed a challenge for SHIELD’s outfitters, to find a way to keep her from melting through nearly every kind of tactical gear they could fabricate (except, of course, for the one that exploded on impact, which had been a bit of a mess to clean up).

It was simply a matter of pressing her hand to the front door of the building, watching the metal bubble beneath her palm, and jabbing an elbow through the weak spot. 

The fear in Killian’s eyes when he saw her was almost palpable.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “You’re going to turn yourself in.” 

He squared his jaw, jutted out his chin. “You’ll have to kill me first,” he warned. 

“I don’t think so,” Pepper replied, and she stalked to his computer. “I’m just going to kill your data.” 

She left Killian in handcuffs, his stolen research reduced to a molten lump on his desk, and a larger molten lump in the server rack. 

“We could give you a job,” Peggy informed Pepper, during their debrief. “There’s a man I’d like you to meet; he’s been looking for people who could--”

“No,” Pepper answered, through gritted teeth. “This isn’t...I don’t like this,” she said. “Killian needed to be stopped.” 

Peggy sighed. “There are other things that need to be stopped. We're living in a world where one kind of terrorist flies planes into towers and another kind of terrorist shoots their classmates in school. And I’m getting too old to stop them.” 

“I’m sorry,” Pepper replied. “You’ll have to find someone else.”

***

As long as she kept her head down, Pepper told herself, as long as she stayed out of the way, kept herself from doing anything _too_ terrifying, she could keep her _condition_ to herself. It got easier to control, the longer it was part of her: after a month or so, unless something really took her by surprise, she didn’t get unnaturally warm.

She moved to Los Angeles, found herself a position in the accounting department for a big weapons manufacturer. She didn’t relish the idea of going back into the business after the mess that AIM had been, but it was where her experience lay.

The minute she saw the books, she knew something was wrong. 

“Mr. Stark?” she called hurriedly after the man she vaguely recognized from the tabloids. She was sweating nervously; the effort of trying to keep her composure _and_ keep from burning up was nearly too much, and she could feel the place where her hand left a sticky palm print on the manilla of the folder. 

The man kept walking; she wondered if she had the wrong man. But no, she thought, squinting after him, the fancy cell phone glued to his ear, the perfect crease in his Italian suit, that was definitely Tony Stark. 

“Sir?” she tried again. “Mr. Stark?” 

“Make an appointment with my assistant,” he called over his shoulder. 

“You don’t have an assistant,” Pepper explained, looking gloomily at the empty desk. She had _tried_ to make an appointment, but when she’d discovered that Tony Stark hadn’t kept an assistant for more than two weeks in his career, she’d supposed the direct route was preferable. 

“Mr _Stark_ ,” she repeated, and she grabbed his shoulder-- hard, hard enough to jolt him, but not hard enough to cause harm. 

He turned to face her, peering up at her over the rims of his fancy-looking sunglasses. 

He blinked, and then dropped his phone. “And where’d _you_ come from?” he asked, as he leaned over, snatched the phone off the floor, and flipped it shut all in the matter of a moment, in a single smooth motion. 

“Accounting,” Pepper replied. The way he looked at her made her uneasy; there was a sort of intensity to him that she hadn’t quite prepared herself for. “The name’s Pepper Potts, sir, I’m--” 

He grinned, and slid the sunglasses off his face. “Pepper. Potts.” He said her name slowly, seeming to relish it in a way she’d never heard anyone say her name before. “Is that a nickname?” 

“Short for Virginia,” Pepper answered.”

Tony squinted. “How do you get Pepper from Virginia? Let me guess; it’s the, ah, freckles?”

Pepper snorted. “Something like that, sir.”

“Anyway,” he said. 

Pepper swallowed. “Anyway.” She wondered if her cheeks were flushed, or if she’d gone pale enough that her freckles were standing out like pinpricks. 

Tony tilted his head at her, his eyes wide and curious, like a child’s. “You...wanted something?” he asked. “Or do you just make a habit of grabbing strange men in professional settings? Because as far as I’m aware, that goes against section 4 of our employee handbook, and I would _hate_ to lose someone as…” He eyed her intently. “Interesting as you.”

She couldn’t tell if he was flirting. It certainly sounded that way, but flirting by reminding someone about the sexual harassment chapter of the employee handbook seemed, to Pepper at least, to be somewhat ill-advised. 

She swallowed. “I’m not interesting,” she said.

“You’re not?” Tony asked. “Because from where I’m looking, that’s not the case. I don’t stop unless something’s interesting. Do you know how little free time I have? Do you know how many meetings I have? Believe me, if I’m here, you’re interesting.” 

Pepper chuckled nervously. “Hopefully not too interesting, sir.” And then she remembered herself and held out the folder. “I’d like you to take a look at these numbers?” 

Tony put a finger up. “I don’t like to be handed things.” 

“Well, then,” Pepper said, holding the folder open. “You can look.” 

“You’ve got the wrong guy,” Tony said, waving dismissively. “You want Mr. Stane; he runs the day-to-day; I’m just R&D and the, ah, public face of the company, no big deal, kind of like a less-fuzzy mascot, but--” 

But even as he spoke, she could see his eyes working their way across the page, could see his mood slowly deflating, and his brow furrow. “That’s...some discrepancy,” he observed. 

Pepper nodded. “That’s why I thought I should come to you,” she admitted. “Do you…” 

Tony’s expression was one of alarm: he scrubbed at the tuft of hair on his chin. “Can you send that to my assist--” 

His face fell. 

“You don’t have an assistant,” Pepper reminded him. 

“I remember.” He looked from the contents of the file, up to Pepper’s face, then back down at the contents of the file. “Say, uh...Pepper? It was Pepper, right? Like the condiment?” 

Pepper nodded. “Or the vegetable.” 

“Technically, it’s a fruit,” Tony corrected. “Seeds on the inside, and all.” He pursed his lips. “Though I like ‘em better than the condiment. That always makes me sneeze.” 

Pepper smiled. “You’re not sneezing now,” she informed him. 

“You’re _right_ ,” said Tony, flashing her a toothy grin. “I’m not. So, what’ll it be?” 

“What’ll...what be?” Pepper asked, not entirely sure what she was supposed to be responding to. 

Tony held his hands out, hopeful. “The job,” he said. “Do you want the job?” 

“What job?” Pepper mentally rewound the conversation. He hadn’t offered her a job, unless…

“Oh, _no_.” She realized she’d said it aloud as soon as the words were out of her mouth. 

“No?” Tony said. “But I haven’t explained the salary, or the benefits. There’s...ah, there are a lot of benefits. Getting to pal around with me, for example, some people would say is a benefit.” 

“Do you offer dental care?” Pepper ventured, skeptical. 

“Me, personally?” Tony asked. “I mean, I _could_ , but I’m not technically _licensed_. I have a tiny drill, though.” 

And then he blinked. “An actual drill. That was not a euphemism.” Tony chuckled nervously. “Er. A drill. With a bit. For making holes in…” He coughed. “Back to the job, er. No drills, just...phonecalls, and appointments, and handling discrepancies in the accounting department?” 

Pepper swallowed. “Let me think about it.” 

“Sure,” Tony said. “Take seventy-two hours.” 

Three hours later, five dozen roses and a bottle of the most expensive champagne she’d ever seen showed up at her apartment. 

Twelve hours later, she accepted the job. 

And three months later, she saved a busload of people.

***

She hadn’t meant to do it, really.

No, that wasn’t right. She had meant to save them, of course, but she wasn’t _looking_ to run around rescuing anyone. She’d only just sat down at her desk and started shuffling through the morning’s paperwork, trying to prioritize it by what Tony absolutely _needed_ to sign (she had, by now, discovered that his presence was occasionally a benefit but more frequently infuriating and fleeting) before he ran out of the office to some social event or to hide in his workshop. When the news scrolled by on the ticker on her computer desktop-- a bus being held hostage by a bomber-- her heart sank. 

Until she saw the address of the bus, three blocks away. 

She shivered, and looked down at her hands. She could feel them tingling, could feel a tiny spark of heat inside her, and she forced down the voice of doubt in her head, determined. 

She snatched up a prototype tactical suit from Tony’s office, where it was laid out on display for a presentation, left Tony a message that she had an emergency doctor’s appointment-- but nothing to worry about-- and darted out of the building.

In the aftermath, stealing away from the scene sweaty and grimy and feeling the shaky chill of the adrenaline leaving her body, Pepper’s head was full of voices of doubt. Of course, of course she’d saved all those people, but what _now_? What happened _next time_? What if someone recognized her? What if, what if, what if…

Tony, somehow, didn’t recognize her, even as he played back the video over and over and over again, remarking on how he’d thought that tac vest hadn’t hit the market, but hey, free advertising, could she get the PR people on this right away? 

After a few days, she was fairly satisfied-- and relieved-- that no one recognized her. The barista at her coffee shop didn’t recognize her; the doorman at the Stark Industries building didn’t recognize her. Mr. Stane didn’t recognize her, Tony didn’t recognize her, Happy didn’t recognize her, her hairdresser didn’t recognize her, her own _mother_ didn’t recognize her. 

She was safe. 

But she still felt a little bit ill, a lingering sense of trepidation following her everywhere. She _should_ be doing more, shouldn’t she? She could be helping people every day, but here she was, sitting on her sofa, in pajamas, eating ice cream out of the container with a spoon, doing absolutely nothing of use. 

The phone rang. She put down her spoon and looked at the caller ID: she thought she recognized the number, just barely, but it wasn’t anyone she _knew_. She considered letting it go to voicemail, but then, supposing that would only mean having to call someone back later, she answered. 

“Hello?” she asked.

“Miss Potts?” 

The voice-- an older woman’s voice, also seemed familiar, but she couldn’t place it for the life of her.

“Who’s calling?” Pepper asked. 

“It’s Margaret Jones,” said the voice. “Peggy. From the Strategic Homeland--”

Pepper tensed. “I remember,” she said. “Of course.” 

“I saw what you did,” said Peggy. “And I was wondering if you’d thought any more about our offer.” 

“I told you,” Pepper said. “I don’t think it’s right for me. The bus...that...was a one-time thing.” 

There was silence at the other end of the line. “And how do you feel about that?” 

Pepper squeezed her eyes shut. “Terrible,” she admitted. 

She could hear Peggy breathe on the other end of the line, deeply. 

“We can change that,” Peggy said. “If you want to.”

***

“Are you sure about this?” Pepper asked, as she stared at herself in the mirror, her eyes fixed on the star on her chest, sewn into the body armor she wore.

“I’m sure,” Peggy replied, and she offered Pepper a reassuring smile. “Try on the cowl.” 

Pepper tugged it on, adjusting and readjusting until she could see clearly through the eye holes in the front of the mask. 

“I never understood the A,” she admitted, putting a finger over the white letter that marked the cowl. “The stars, the stripes, the red white and blue...the symbolism is good. But the letter?” 

“Black and white,” Peggy replied. “The newsreels were black and white, even with the stars and stripes, it wasn’t always clear who was whom. So, the A.” 

“Hm,” Pepper said. She took a deep breath. “Am I gonna burn through this stuff?” she asked, poking at her armguards. 

“It’s been specially formulated,” Peggy replied. “You _shouldn’t_.” 

Pepper poked at the fabric; it felt familiar, somehow. She raised an eyebrow at the older woman. “Is this _Starktech_?” she asked. 

Peggy smiled, a close-mouthed, almost secretive smile. “It’s a big company,” she said. “No one knows what it’s for.” 

“You know I work for them, now, don’t you?” Pepper asked. “I work for Tony Stark; I-- if he _notices_...” 

“He won’t,” Peggy assured her. 

Pepper swallowed, and Peggy pointed to a box on the table-- it was shallow, and square, and Pepper hadn’t noticed it until Peggy indicated it now. 

She knew what was in it before it was opened. 

Putting her hand on the shield, in the center, over the star, Pepper stared intently, focused, and let her hand grow hot. 

The gloves Peggy had given her not only withstood the heat, but amplified it, her entire hand searing and glowing red. The heat should have melted metal, or at least left some kind of mark. 

The shield was unaffected. 

She poked her finger at the still-white star. “I’m really doing this,” she realized aloud.

Peggy smiled. "You're really doing this," she said. "Thanks, Captain. Thank you. From so many of us." 

Pepper let out a nervous chuckle. "I'm going to have to get used to that title."

***

“Did you _see_ this?” Tony asked, his eyes alight as he pushed a newspaper across Pepper’s desk.

She could feel her cheeks going hot-- not Extremis-hot, that didn’t happen anymore, just the sort of warmth that meant she wasn’t sure how to answer the questions that were no doubt about to come. 

“See wha--” she started to ask, and then there it was: a picture of _her_ , in that uniform, as she carried a kid to safety, diving from an exploding building. “Oh,” she said. She rubbed at her forearms; she was relieved she still _had _them, but it appeared that she was virtually invulnerable in her current state.__

__It didn't matter how many times she did it, it was still terrifying._ _

__“I saw,” Pepper said to Tony. “It was…”_ _

__“Breathtaking, huh?” Tony asked. There was a note of admiration in his voice she'd never heard before._ _

__Tony lifted the newspaper back up. “I'd love to know who this guy is,” he admitted. “Captain America, man. You know what a hero-crush I had on him when I was a kid? I'm kinda jealous, have to admit. How d’you think he got the job?”_ _

__Pepper laughed nervously. “Practice?” She tried._ _

__“Nah, this isn't Carnegie Hall,” Tony replied._ _

__Pepper watched Tony stare at the image in the paper for a few minutes longer. “I'd love to meet ‘im,” Tony admitted. “Whoever he is.”_ _

__Pepper suppressed a cough. “Maybe you already have.”_ _

__It got harder, the longer she kept up the charade. Being Tony Stark’s personal assistant wasn't exactly a nine to five job with guaranteed off-hours, and the more she assumed her new role, the more she was in the paper._ _

__“We need to talk,” she said to Peggy, one day during a mission debrief that was cutting dangerously close to a benefit gala she was expected to attend._ _

__“We do,” Peggy agreed. “But I suspect we don't have the same subjects in mind.”_ _

__“This is getting difficult,” Pepper admitted. “Balancing...this, and my actually on-the-books job, and..” She held her hands up, frustratedly. “Everything.”_ _

__“Well,” Peggy said, a soft expression on her face. “I wish I could tell you it gets easier,” she said, “but it doesn't. It stays hard. It does feel more...normal, eventually.”_ _

__It wasn't what Pepper wanted to hear, but she knew it was true. “What about Tony?” She asked._ _

__Peggy sighed. “I need to show you something,” she said._ _

__Peggy pulled up an image on a computer screen, an image of a missile Pepper had redirected the previous week. She started to enlarge it, but she didn’t have to do much: Pepper saw the Stark Industries logo emblazoned on its side, clear as day._ _

__“I can’t believe I didn’t notice that before,” Pepper murmured. Her heart sank. “Are you telling me you think he has something to do with this? Stark Industries sells weapons around the globe; it would be easy for one to fall into the wrong hands, as much as I hate to think of the consequences. Tony’s…”_ _

__She trailed off. Finding the right words to use to defend Tony Stark was sometimes a struggle. “He means well,” she decided, finally._ _

__Peggy laughed, softly. “Believe me,” she said. “I know. I knew his father. He _always_ meant well.” _ _

__Somehow, Peggy’s words made Pepper feel some sense of relief. “You trust him, then?” Pepper asked._ _

__“I don’t know him,” Peggy admitted. “I haven’t seen him since he was a child. If he’s anything like his father, I trust him to do the right thing, but I also trust him to make bad judgment calls, to get mixed up with the wrong people, to trust people who _aren’t_ trustworthy, to not always see the details.” She tsked, glanced up at the ceiling. “I don’t think it’s wise. Yet.” _ _

__Pepper took a deep breath. She couldn’t exactly _argue_ with any of that, and she knew it. “What did you want to talk to me about?” _ _

__Peggy cleared her throat. “I’m retiring.”_ _

__A few days later, Peggy introduced Pepper to Nick Fury._ _

__“Captain.” Nick greeted her with a polite nod, his hands folded behind his back. “It’s good to finally meet you. I was wondering when Carter would let you out to play.”_ _

__“Peggy’s told me all about you,” Pepper said. She wondered if she should shake the man’s hand, but he was keeping his hands out of sight, so she supposed the answer was no. “She said I’ll be reporting to you now?”_ _

__“In a manner of speaking,” Nick answered, and he put a folder down on the table in front of her. “It’s in its earliest stages, but I’ve been starting to assemble a...task force of sorts. We could really use you.”_ _

__Pepper scrutinized the single letter embossed on the front of the folder. “What does the ‘A’ stand for?” she asked._ _

____

***

Pepper could feel her phone vibrating against her thigh, but she couldn’t answer it, not now, not as she was evacuating refugees from a mudslide. But the buzzes felt as if they became more insistent each time they repeated.

Finally, finally, when the last injured person was loaded into the last ambulance, Pepper pulled out her phone.

Colonel Rhodes. 

Six times. 

For a moment, she was relieved: she hadn’t missed a call from Tony, lucky that Tony was out of the country, so she didn’t have to make any kind of ridiculous excuses for where she was It was probably just Rhodes wondering where Tony was; Tony probably just wasn’t picking up his phone. 

And then she remembered, with a chill, that Tony and Rhodes had been together in Afghanistan. 

She returned the call. 

“Pepper?” Rhodes’ voice was shaking. She’d never heard his voice shake before. 

“Yeah,” she said. “What’s wr--”

“There was an attack,” Rhodes answered, before she had a chance to get all her words out. “An ambush. Tony’s gone.” 

“Gone,” Pepper echoed back slowly, quietly. “What are we going to do about it?” 

“We?” Rhodes asked. 

Pepper swallowed. “I mean. Well, of course; I’ll have to see to the press, make sure they don’t spin this some awful way, make sure the reports are accurate, and…”

She was shaking. She could feel the tips of her fingers start to go impossibly hot. That never happened anymore, not without her control. 

“You’ll find him, won’t you?” she asked. She curled her hands into fists, trying to contain the heat. 

She knew, intellectually, that Rhodes and Tony had been friends since college, but she wasn’t prepared to hear the anguish and tears in his voice. 

“Yeah,” he said. “We’ll find him.”

***

“Assign me to Tony Stark,” Pepper said, as she walked into Nick’s control room.

“Pardon?” Nick turned around, squinting at her. 

“Tony Stark’s been kidnapped. You should assign Captain America to help find him.” 

“That’s…” Nick hesitated. “That’s Afghanistan; we don’t have the authority to send--” 

“I can’t sit at home wondering if my boss is alive,” Pepper said. “The Ten Rings are a terrorist group. It’s counterterrorism. Who better for counterterrorism than Captain America?” 

Nick shook his head. “You can’t have a goddamn star-spangled-banner showing up in Afghanistan spewing some rah-rah antiterrorist talk. You know how that’ll look?” 

Pepper grimaced. She _did_ know how that would look. “Give me tac gear,” she answered. “I’ll go in stealth.” 

Nick watched her for a long moment, crossing his arms over his chest. “I have a better idea.”

Pepper gritted her teeth. “If you’re going to give me some kind of feel-good mission and think it’s going to take my mind off Tony--” 

Nick tapped at a screen, brought up a feed of data: lists, images, ship manifests. “There’s evidence that the Ten Rings have ties to American interests. _Those_ you can take care of. We’ll tell Colonel Rhodes we’re sending him Captain America.” 

It wasn’t what she wanted, but it was something. “Thank you, sir.” 

The network of American connections to the Ten Rings was massive, and Pepper felt uneasy simply looking at all the contacts, all the machinations that supported the organization. It seemed like something bigger, it _had_ to be something bigger, she thought, than a group of men who fancied themselves freedom fighters hiding in a cave. 

One by one, Captain America took down supply lines, confronted suspects, cleared out operations, became so focused that it was easy to forget that Tony had been gone for weeks, and still, she felt like she’d only seen the tip of the iceberg.

She was neglecting work. When the board wanted sign-off to restructure operations in Tony’s absence, she gave it without a second thought. She kept hoping that one of these missions, she’d find something, _something_ that told her Tony was still alive, that Tony was still okay. 

And then she got the phonecall from Rhodes. 

The phone woke her. She wasn’t sure how late it was; she didn’t look at the clock, only saw Rhodes’ number flashing on the display and answered. 

“I think we’ve found him,” said Rhodes. “I’m going to retrieve him myself.” 

Pepper felt her heart speed up. “Please,” was all she could say. 

The second phonecall came moments after she’d hung up from the first. 

“You’re awake?” Nick asked. 

“Yeah,” Pepper replied. 

“Then you know why I’m calling?” 

“Rhodes just called,” she told him. “I know.” 

“We’d like Captain America to be there,” Nick said. “Well. _I_ tried to convince certain other parties that it was a terrible idea, but the official word is that we’d like Captain America to be there.” 

“That is a terrible idea.” Pepper’s stomach lurched. “I’ll do it.” 

Tony barely noticed the red-white-and-blue-clad hero standing behind his friend as Rhodes helped him to safety. 

He looked at her briefly, and smiled, a toothy grin that looked almost comical in his hollow face. “Captain America,” he said, happily. “They sent me Captain America.” And then his attention went back to Rhodes.

He was clearly half-delirious, exhausted, dehydrated...Pepper let Rhodes see to him, and was silently relieved. She’d been terrified enough that Rhodes would recognize her up close, but her salvation there was that he’d been preoccupied with Tony. She made herself scarce, as scarce as she could, though it was difficult in close quarters. 

When they landed in L.A., she had to vanish quickly, and reappear just as quickly as her unfrazzled-personal-assistant-self. 

The look on Tony’s face when he saw _her_ for the first time, well...his reaction to Captain America had nothing on that. Their eyes locked, and his were so gleaming, so full of adoration, and it seemed so sudden that she wondered where that came from.

She’d missed him, too. She tried to shove it out of her mind. 

And then she saw the mess the Ten Rings had made of his chest, the reactor that was the only thing keeping him alive. When he asked her to help him switch out the old reactor for the new, she was deathly certain she was going to kill him, after he’d survived so much.

She left Tony’s workshop and cleared out another cell connected to the Ten Rings that night, singlehandedly, without support, without orders. 

It took every ounce of her moral fortitude not to kill the three men she found there. Her palms itched; she wanted to burn off their faces. Instead, she left them bound and gagged on the steps of the local precinct. No one would believe their story; no one would believe Captain America, of all people, would be behind an act of vigilante justice. 

She promised herself as she left that she wouldn’t do it again. 

It wasn’t so much later that she discovered Tony was doing exactly the same thing.

***

“I need you to look at something,” Nick said to Pepper. He brought up an image on a screen, an image of a red-and-gold blur moving like a torpedo. “Do you know what that is?”

She hadn’t told anyone about Tony’s new project. Pepper’s own life was quickly becoming even more complicated: she suspected Tony’s mentor might be trying to kill him; she suspected SHIELD knew what Tony was doing, but without being certain…

“I’ve seen the news,” Pepper replied, cautiously. 

“We need Captain America to meet with Iron Man,” Nick told her. 

Pepper started, then frowned. “Are we calling him Iron Man? Is that--”

“Until he gives us a better name,” said Nick. 

“As I understand it, the suit is technically a gold-titanium alloy,” Pepper replied, then bit her lip. She couldn’t remember if that was public knowledge. 

Nick snorted. “I don’t think anyone _cares_ , Captain. Look. We’ve got...so far, this guy seems to be helping. He’s targeting terrorist organizations around the globe. That’s great. It’s just...we can’t wait to find out what his goals are. But we’ve also got to meet him on his level. And we’ve only got one guy on his level.” 

“Captain America,” Pepper replied. “I don’t know, Director, is that--” 

“You think he’s going to listen to some creepy one-eyed old black man approaching him about some hush-hush secret superhero society?” Nick asked. 

Pepper shrugged. She couldn’t say what she wanted to say, couldn’t say that Captain America meeting with Iron Man would compromise her identity to her own _boss_ , without potentially compromising her _boss_ to the government. 

“I thought the official line on the Iron Man thing was that it was a training exercise,” Pepper said. “I thought we weren’t acknowledging it was a person.” 

“Officially?” Nick said. “No. But that doesn’t mean we can’t talk to the guy.” 

“Point taken,” she relented. 

She expected Tony to recognize her, expected him to see right through the suit, as cleverly made as it was, and realize she was not only a woman but his own _assistant_ , but he never did. 

He _did_ ask Captain America to join him on missions. 

The first time Tony lifted her in his arms, carried her across the sky, nothing but wind and clouds for miles around them, she nearly took off the cowl and told him the truth. It was hard not to hold him a little more tightly than necessary, hard not to be familiar with him, not to talk to him like she knew exactly who he was and why he was doing this. She wanted to tell him that she was there for the same reasons, because she’d seen what these people had done to him, and seen the way they’d manipulated his life’s work, right under his nose. She’d seen the way Tony’s heart had broken, and seen the way he’d put the pieces back together with a renewed conviction to do _good_ that she’d never seen in him before.

The first time someone aimed a heat-seeking missile at the Iron Man suit, Pepper almost called him Tony. 

Instead, she told him to fly her out to the middle of the desert and drop her there. 

“Sorry, Cap, but I don’t think I _exactly_ understand your goal, here,” Tony said. 

“I’ve got one,” Pepper assured him. “You’ll see.” 

The missile dove and twisted toward Iron Man, but the armor was just fast enough to keep ahead. 

“Now,” Pepper said. 

“Are you...sure?” Tony asked. “I don’t see--” 

“ _Do it_ ,” Pepper insisted. 

The moment she was out of Tony’s grasp, she let herself start heating up. 

She watched Tony hover in place, barely more than a speck in the sky above, but she knew he was still hesitating, knew he was still considering flying down to stop her. 

The missile instantly changed directions, stopped tailing Tony, and sped toward her.

She landed in a wide expanse of pearly sand stretching out to nothing as far as the eye could see. It sizzled and melted beneath her feet, a set of glass footprints marking the place where she stood. 

And then the missile impacted. By the time it exploded, she was hotter than the blast; she could feel the agony of being torn apart even as her body regenerated itself, replacing cells as quickly as the old ones were destroyed. 

When the smoke cleared, she stood in the center of an expanse of glass that spread out for dozens of yards in every direction. 

Tony was there, in front of her, standing on the ground. She knew then that he’d dived down as soon as the missile went off. 

“Cap?” he asked, his voice wavering, as if he couldn’t quite believe she was still there. “Are you--” 

Pepper took a deep breath, and pulled back the cowl. “I’m fine, Tony,” she said. “I’m fi--”

She never got to finish. Her wind was knocked out of her by the force of his embrace.

***

Pepper could hear the voices in the hall just outside the control room where Nick had asked her to wait.

“There’s someone we’d like you to meet,” she heard Nick say. “She’s already agreed to help you...get situated, get acquainted with...well, what being someone like you is going to mean today. 

“Someone like me?” the other voice sounded dubious. 

But then the door opened, and the young blond man who walked in looked at her with wide, blue eyes. He took a deep breath, ran a hand over his forehead, and then straightened up, and saluted. 

“Captain,” he said, but there was a question in his voice, an uncertainty in his eyes. 

Pepper grinned. “Captain,” she echoed back at him. “Welcome to the twenty-first century.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If you would like to share this fic, you can use [this tumblr post](http://teaberryblue.tumblr.com/post/148568483604/i-wrote-a-fic-for-the-mcu-rolling-remix-red-hot) to do so!


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